But for the first time, emergency workers from all the agencies were able to talk to one another – even though they were using different radio systems.

The $2 million electronic “patch” connecting the systems was finally operating.

The patch is part of the more than $48 million that has been spent in Colorado since 2003 to upgrade emergency-radio communications, according to state and local officials.

In the Denver area, 27 communities and agencies have spent $16 million, said Marty Flahive, manager of the Denver-area Urban Area Security Initiative.

Statewide, Colorado now has universal mobile-radio communications in more than 75 percent of the state, said George Epp, director of the state Division of Emergency Management.

It will reach 95 percent by the end of 2007, Epp said.

On the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks – and more than seven years after the Columbine High School shootings – Colorado has made strides in its emergency communications.

“I think we are a lot more prepared,” said Dana Hansen, manager of Denver’s police-radio system and chairwoman of a regional communications committee. “Everything changed with 9/11 and Columbine.”

At Columbine, hundreds of responders had trouble communicating because they used different kinds of radios.

Until recently, a terrorist attack in Colorado would have been another communications disaster, emergency managers say.

“We’ve built on what we learned from past disasters,” Hansen said. “We looked at real-life events such as Columbine, which was a communications disaster, and the 2003 midair plane collision over northwest Denver to build communications successes today.”

Just last October, a mock emergency drill – a radioactive dirty bomb at the Denver Coliseum – had not been a success as radios proved to still be incompatible.

Since then, radios have been reprogrammed, Hansen said, and officers have been trained on how to use them.

“The (recent) exercises were successful, but we will not know how the system really responds until we are faced with a real situation,” said Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson, head of a group representing emergency responders in 10 metro counties.

“Are we ready? Are we prepared? That’s an unanswerable question,” said the Denver-area initiative’s Flahive.

“I doubt you can ever find a public official anywhere who can say, ‘Yes, we’re ready,”‘ Flahive said. “We’re a lot more ready than we were three years ago, and we’re more ready this year than last year.”

In June, Denver, Arvada and Jefferson County officers used the unified system to chase down the driver of a stolen car, Hansen said.

“We didn’t buy it for just the big events but to use it every day so when you have the disaster, it’s second nature,” Hansen said.

Across the state, 53 new radio towers are being built – at a cost of $30 million, said the Emergency Management Division’s Epp.

“We’ve gone from fairly minimal coverage along only highways and metro areas to a place where we have mobile radio coverage over three-quarters of the state,” Epp said.

The radio towers are being paid for by federal Homeland Security grants and state oil and gas severance taxes.

More than 18,000 new radios, costing $54 million, are being paid for by local governments, local grants and Homeland Security funding, Epp said.

“Technically, we’re in much better shape than we were on Sept. 11, 2001,” Epp said. “But in the words of John Wayne, the first thing you gotta do with a posse is organize it. Just giving everyone a radio that can talk to anyone in the state is not in itself a solution.”

The 5 percent of the state that will remain uncovered includes rugged terrain and alpine areas, where another, incompatible radio system works best, Epp said.